Call it a benign tumor so far, but there’s been some complications with the Seth Rogen comedy, “I’m With Cancer.”
The project was supposed to shoot in January, but according to THR, director Nicole Holofcener (“Friends With Money,” “Lovely & Amazing”) has removed herself from the project.
The film stars James McAvoy and Rogen (in a supporting role, he’s also a producer) and the script is written by Will Reisner based on his “I’m With Cancer,” a comedic novel about being a young, 20-something suddenly hit with the disease (though it appears that book has not been released yet).
Last we heard actually the film had dropped it’s “I’m With Cancer,” title and had been so-far untitled (referred to as “Untitled Cancer Comedy” for now). Mandate pictures, the people who are producing this are looking for a new director now and the apparent reason why Holofcener is off the project is because of locations — she wanted to shoot in L.A. to be close to her family, Mandate wanted to shoot in Vancouver (though really those locations are not far from each other at all).
Will they find a new director in January? Conspiracy theorists for “The Hobbit,” think this doesn’t leave McAvoy a lot of time to play Bilbo Baggins in the Guillermo del Toro-directed prequel to ‘LOTR’ which is planning to shoot in March 2010 — that is if McAvoy even has the part — but it seems pretty doubtful at this point that he will. But who knows. He certainly wouldn’t be a bad choice…
